Should we raise the minimum wage? The editors at Bloomberg think so. They maintain that low-wage jobs are expanding and that a minimum wage hike would boost the economy. Despite these notions, hiking the minimum wage remains a bad idea. Bloomberg first laments that low-wage jobs are becoming the norm: …
Sugar producers contribute only a small percentage of value to overall U.S. crop production, yet the industry continues to reap the rewards from government thanks to a significant lobbying presence and sizable campaign donations. The result is government interference in the sugar market, which dates to the 1930s Depression. American …
The Brooklyn Hospital Center wanted to reward its best nurses, so it honored high-performing nurses with a breakfast and gave them $100 gift cards. Unfortunately, the nurses’ union did not approve. They filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board, and the board forbid the hospital from giving such bonuses …
The Dodd–Frank financial strangulation statute transferred a portion of the duties once performed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. That’s left the FTC to tap its $292 million budget and 1,176 full-time employees for devising stricter regulation of…appliance labels. Specifically, the agency intends …
Since 1993, the Census Bureau has made available detailed data about federal government expenditures in its Consolidated Federal Funds Report (CFFR). The 2012 report will be the last one. Through the CFFR website, the public had access to such data as federal expenditures made at the county level for programs …
To hear certain parts of the press tell it, the acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), Ed DeMarco, announced that the agency is willing to consider wholesale write-downs of underwater mortgages in a recent speech on the subject. However, a closer reading of DeMarco’s speech and the …
No one likes tax increases, right? Not quite. Government unions do. In California, government unions recently postponed their contract negotiations until after a vote on an initiative that would hike taxes. The unions support the initiative, and they don’t want their new contracts to cause Californians to vote no. Their …
